Why is my tanks hardness so much more than the water I put into it?

[JackBlasto]

I am putting straight RO water into my tank which reads 20 microseimens conductivity. After it cycles through my tank it has 262 microseimens. My goal is to be around 100 microseimens as I'm prepping this tank for Discus fish. Now WHY does my tank have such a vastly different reading than the trash can I am making RO water in? Can the substrate cause this much of a difference? I'm guessing it does but I'm a little concerned that I will never be able to reach my targeted softness needed. Anyone have any advice here. I have been struggling to get this tank cycled and ready for Discus for about 8 months now. It is a planted tank with CO2 and I'm injecting it with fertilizers using the pps pro dosing method that I read about on here. Could the fertilizers make the water harder? Thanks for any insight on how I can achieve a softer end result. I mean I'm not even mixing my RO water 50/50 anymore just because I figure the stuff I put in the water will be the additives it needs at this point.

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

What substrate are you using and are there any stones you are using for decor?

 

[JackBlasto]

no stones for decor but the substrate is called aquadurt. It's sold by a company called aquariumplants.com


This all has to be because of a substrate that I used. It is called aqua durt: Chemical makeup is as follows:

TYPICAL CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
component weight %
volatile free basis
SiO2....................................76.72
Al2O3..................................11.28
CaO......................................0.63
MgO.....................................2.04
Na2O....................................0.10
K21O....................................1.26
Fe2O2..................................6.51
MnO.....................................0.01
P2O5....................................0.11
TiO2....................................0.52
FeO....................................0.82
Loss on Ignition.................2.20

I just found a post on here from someone using aquadurt that they couldn't get the TDS below 300 no matter what they did. Ugh... They don't tell you that when they sell the stuff to you... Hmmmm... This is most likely the culprit as there are only so many possibilities and this is one of them... Not too happy about it. If you can think of anything let me know.

 

[MMantelli]

In your pps pro are you dosing the mgso4 (magnesium sulfate)? that would cause it

 

[JackBlasto]

Yes I am actually...


K2SO4 – 29 grams
KNO3 – 33 grams
KH2PO4 – 3 grams
MgSO4 – 20 grams

To be honest... I'm fumbling around with the results of this fertilization as well. I mean my plants aren't going crazy healthy so maybe I need to rethink how I dose?

My tank is 100 gallons and is tall 36 inches tall to be exact. Maybe this affects how the ferts get distributed in the tank... I guess I'm getting off topic though so to answer your question, yes, I'm following the exact recipe posted by the pps pro posted above...

Thanks for the advice though. I will possibly play with the amounts I'm dosing. Currently I'm doing 10 ml daily.

 

[MMantelli]

Ok so a good place to start to 86 the mgso4 all together you only need it if your carbonate hardness is below 4 and since your doing a discuss tank it will do the opposite of what you are trying to do. It's ok this is still on topic cause that is what's causing you readings to go up. It may not be the only thing causing it though. Are you doing them dry or do you have tnem mixed up in dosing bottles? I would reccomend getting 3 1000ml dosing bottles and start of by following this chart. Also you want your nitrates to be at 10-20 closer to 10though and your phosphates between 1-2 closer to one unless you have mostly red plants then it can be higher. But ya cut out the mgso4 altogether I don't dose it at all in my planted tanks.

 

[JackBlasto]

Thanks for your input here. I really do appreciate the advice as I have really been struggling finding the balance to my tank and any leads to me getting there are so helpful. Also, to answer your question I am using dry ferts that I weigh and put in a mixture of RO water just like you it seems. Quick question? Why do you separate the Potassium Nitrate from your Potassium Sulfate and Potassium Phosphate mixture? I'm just curious as on the pps pro website they say to combine those in the one bottle of mixture. Is there a benefit to not combining them?

 

[MMantelli]

Yes that way you can customize your nitrate and phosphate levels seperatley cause they don't always coincide with what you are trying to do. And yes I take my dry ferts weigh them out according to that chart and add 1ml/250ml of excel to your fert mix to act as a preservative. Also your gonna wanna do a big water change and the next morning test your nitrate and phosphate and write it down in a notebook this is your starting level then start dosing each mix at 1ml/10g and at the end of the week test again and write it down and do your water change dose for a week and repeat that way you can keep track of your levels and adjust accordingly. That's where someone with more experiance than me will have to chime in I get advice from someone who has been keeping planted tanks for a long time I'm just getting the hang of how much to adjust my 20g but once you get everything where you want it and consistant you won't have to keep adjusting.

 

[JackBlasto]

OK. thank you for providing me with some direction on this. I just tested everything after doing a 50% water change this morning. My readings are

Nitrate: 16.8
Phosphate: 1.1
Potassium: over 100 mg (meter won't read that high)

Now, I have always struggled with my potassium being crazy high levels. It IS that substrate that is causing this and I've wondered about dosing ferts at all because of it. The lowest I have ever got my potassium is 30 mg by doing a huge water change and testing immediately afterward. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the other levels... Hypothetically speaking, at the end of the upcoming week what is going to be an indicator that I'm going the wrong direction in all this? I'm assuming that if my nitrate levels exceed 20 I'm doing too much potassium nitrate, if my phosphate levels exceed 2.0 ppm then I'm dosing too much Potassium Phosphate... BIG question is what does the potassium sulfate directly affect in these tests? Am I not testing something I need to be since I'm only testing what I thought were the big three (Nitrate, Potassium, and Phosphate)? AND lastly, do you have any clue how to get my potassium levels down, if I need to? (I've read conflicting data that says having high potassium really isn't too bad) It seems that the word potassium is in every one of those chemicals and me not being a scientist might assume that stopping all dosing might be a good idea but something in me says that might have negative results too. Any thoughts? Thanks so much.

 

[MMantelli]

Sounds like you are at a good start those levels are pretty much ideal. And the only things you need to test for are the nitrate and phosphate. At those levels you gave me your plants should use them up pretty quick so start your dosing week with 10ml of each solution.

 

[JackBlasto]

I have pressurized co2 and I also was dosing 20 ml of Metricide Glutaraldehyde (cheap version of excel so I have read) daily... that might be too much...it's 100 gallon tank and I was told I could do 1ml per 5 gallons so I was dosing 20 ml daily. So to answer your question, a little bit of both.

 

[MMantelli]

Ok just wandering. I use diy co2 and 5ml glut in my 20g. So sounds like you got everything you need for a happy healthy planted tank . Good mu k and feel free to pm me with any questions if I don't know the answer ill find out.

 

[JackBlasto]

Ok. It's been a week and here are my current readings.

Nitrate: 27.46
Phosphate: 0.96
Potassium: over 100 mg

I'm assuming I need to reduce my KNO3 to get the nitrates down.

So my game plan is to change the dose of 10 ml daily to maybe 5ml and eliminate the MgSO4 as you suggested.

Next question is HOW the heck do I get my potassium down? I mean it's through the roof high and always has been. I have no fish in this tank yet (trying to stabilize the plant world first)... anyway I would let the fact my potassium is so high slide but the plants look yellow/green rather than green/green and I just feel that this crazy amount of potassium has to do with this as all my other levels seem right around the correct place...

What in the ferts is directly linked with potassium or is all of it?

I'm assuming the plantex is affecting the potassium as I see that it looks something like this:

Guaranteed Analysis: Total magnesium - water soluble chelated magnesium 1.5% Copper - chelated 0.1% Iron - chelated 7.0% Manganese - chelated 2.0% Molybdenum 0.06% Zinc - chelated 0.40% Boron 0.04% EDTA - minimum content 55%

THUS, I'm concluding it's not plantex causing me any problems. Anyway, my tank looks ALMOST good but is on the border of bad... The CO2 is fine as my drop checker shows it's got plenty of CO2...

Ideas on this potassium issue? Thanks!

 

[MMantelli]

I have no idea on the potassium issue but if you can get the nitrates down about another 15 ppm you should be perfect your phosphates look good. The plants in your tank the color there meant to be are green right and do you have any that are meant to be red? If you google aquatic plant deficiancies you might be able to figure out why there yellow unless someone else with more experiance chimes in can you get some pics of the yellowing plants and is it the new or old growth that's turning yellow?

 

[JackBlasto]

Thank you. I'm changing my pps pro mix to be

K2SO4 – 29 grams Potassium Sulfate
KNO3 – 20 grams Potassium Nitrate
KH2PO4 – 3 grams Monopotassium phosphate
MgSO4 – 0 grams No Magnesium Sulfate to avoid hard water issue

I'll test in a week and see what I'm looking at

I'll keep digging on my potassium issue if it is causing any problem:

OK. Kept digging and found this site http://www.rexgrigg.com/dosing.htm

Apparently K2SO4 is directly related to potassium: IF the potassium issue is caused by the substrate I don't need to be dosing it. I'll let the substrate leech whatever it leaches and only dose the two remaining. This means my NEW PPS pro to test is:

K2SO4 – 0 grams Potassium Sulfate
KNO3 – 20 grams Potassium Nitrate
KH2PO4 – 3 grams Monopotassium phosphate
MgSO4 – 0 grams No Magnesium Sulfate to avoid hard water issue

I'll report back although I guess now it's really me tweaking the numbers by changing my doses... Mmantelli THANK you for your advice earlier as it did cause my brain to start churning and how to adjust the ferts on an individual basis which was solid advice and will eventually get me where I need.

 

[MMantelli]

No problem I hope it all works out